A typical long stroke cylindrical linear voice coil actuator 10 consists of an outer shell 12, a long axially magnetized magnet 14, a short soft magnetic pole 16 and a long heavy coil 18, such as is illustrated in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 provides one-half of a longitudinal cross-section view of such a conventional cylindrical actuator with an open end. The bottom-most horizontal line is a centerline of the actuator. The actuator of FIG. 1 usually has a bell-shaped Force vs. Stroke curve, such as illustrated in FIG. 2. However, in applications where the highest force is required at the beginning of the travel, a different design is needed. The Force vs. Stroke characteristic for such an actuator would be a straight line, similar to that of a proportional solenoid. However, the slope of a proportional solenoid's Force vs. Stroke characteristic is determined by a spring, and furthermore, proportional solenoids are unidirectional devices. Therefore, there is a need for a linear voice coil actuator design which has a linear Force vs. Stroke characteristic, which does not depend upon a spring for such characteristic, and which operates bi-directionally.